Psychic Vampires – do they exist?

Category one: They’re the “friends” you can do without. You know the people I mean – they’re the ones that leave you feeling drained having just been in the room with them.

We all have them in our lives – the people who expect you to always be there for them but are never around when you need comfort or just a good bitch session. The person who calls on you because they need a shoulder to cry on, someone to listen to them, someone to bitch to, but the moment you have a problem – poof – they disappear, have no time for you, complain that you’re being selfish by dumping on them and that you don’t understand how bad their lives are.

Problem is when you try to cut them out of your life, they keep creeping back in – they can’t let you go.

Category two: The friends of friends at every gathering that latch on to you the second you walk in the door; or the co-workers who follow you around the office telling you every little bit about their lives.

These are the people I’ve found I’ve instinctively disliked at first meeting without ever knowing why – and then it becomes clear and hour after listening to them try to “one up” everything.

If you mention you just got over a cold then they tell you they almost died from the flu. If you stubbed a toe, they broke both legs. If you witnessed a robbery they were the victim.

You get the idea.

They are not sympathetic or empathetic – they pretend to be but you will discover if you listen carefully how they will turn a momentary comment about understanding your issue into how theirs is so much worse.

They feed off your empathy.

There’s no clear cut way to protect yourself from these kind of people and unfortunately I’ve only been able to rid myself of them by being rude

So what do you do?

There’s no easy answer.

If you ignore them long enough maybe they’ll go away. Or maybe they’ll stalk you and bash you on FB for being a horrible person just to get you to respond and get you back into their lives. Don’t fall for it!

Just remember: Attention is what they want. They want you to expend your energy on them.